


Social Distance in the Time of the Crow-nono Virus

by Fantastic Beasts and Where 2 Fondle Them (WideTheWaters)



Category: Animal Crossing: New Horizons - Fandom, Stardew Valley (Video Game), どうぶつの森 | Animal Crossing Series
Genre: Anthropomorphic, Anthropomorphic Animal/Human Relationships, Anthropomorphic Animal/Human Sex, But destiny intervened..., COVID-19, COVID-19 made me do it, Coronavirus, Crack, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Desert Island Fic, Deserted Island Getaway Package, Drug Use, Drugged Sex, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Furry, Hermit Resident Representative, Multi, Museums, Non-Explicit Sex, Other, Paleontology, Pandemics, Pining, Sex Addiction, She did it all to AVOID the Nook...ie?, Smut, The Opposite of the Coronavirus, Why Did I Write This?, raunchiness, social distancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:55:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23503465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WideTheWaters/pseuds/Fantastic%20Beasts%20and%20Where%202%20Fondle%20Them
Summary: Her brother was left the farm, where he'd found love and was flourishing.She, however, had been left in a cubicle to rot.Something had to give.  She couldn't keep living like this - obsessed with someone she could never have, working a job she hated, living so many degrading lies. And then, she heard about the Deserted Island Getaway Package...
Relationships: Resident Representative (Animal Crossing)/Fuuta | Blathers
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	Social Distance in the Time of the Crow-nono Virus

**Author's Note:**

> CWs: 
> 
> \- MC has a really problematic relationship with sex, crushes, recreational drugs, fetishes, and in general various things that (with the exception of actually meeting DTF anthropomorphic animals) can mostly be done in a healthy fashion.  
> \- Also, sex basically becomes a cure to a disease, which creates dubious consent circumstances.
> 
> Also: 
> 
> \- Style is mostly raunchy half-description  
> \- It wouldn't go away from my cabin-feverish, over-gamed, addled mind until I wrote it, and I'm sorry.

She sat, lost in thought, watching Bob preen happily under the artificial but warming light of his new exhibit. 

“Oh, Bob,” she sighed. “This was supposed to be a fresh start.” 

The snapping turtle she'd named Bob blinked slowly, the only movement it had made in the last several hours. 

She shook her head. How had she gotten into this? 

\-- 

It had been clear that her “alternative lifestyle” was all unsustainable for years, now. It was driven by misery and it only created more misery to keep itself puttering on. She’d reached a turning point, finally, that day while visiting her big brother. 

The brother who’d gotten his ticket out. 

“You wouldn’t believe it, sis,” he’d chuckled, “Me, on a farm. And my girlfriend. Man, she is  _ so _ unbelievably… well, you’ll meet her, after the show, if you stick around, but  _ man _ , the things we get up to...” 

She’d gone down to Joja City to meet him. He was there for the evening with his girlfriend and her band from Pelican Town. Yeah… that idyllic town in Stardew Valley that their grandfather had given her big bro a golden ticket to, just  _ handed _ it to him… leaving  _ her  _ behind in the cubicle farms at the next Corpora-Megalopolis over without a parachute. 

That whole night she endured it, hearing the indie stylings of her soon-to-be depressive pixie dream girl-in-law and watching her brother just  _ glow _ beside her. He’d intermittently giggle over the din of the concert to hint at the things he and Abby did to behind the silo and down deep in the mines - which she thought wasn’t a euphemism? - and then to ask her again if she really thought the mermaid’s pendant was enough, or if he should get a proper ring. 

She’d made herself smile and be reassuring and congratulatory, but there hadn’t been a way out for  _ her. _

And she resented the hell out of it. 

So she’d gone home and called  _ him _ again, that ex everyone says they’ll never call again only to turn around and do it, and later, when the cheap polyester costume pelt was chafing her damp thighs, she gritted her teeth and told herself she’d  _ have  _ to find her own way out. 

\-- 

That was how she’d ended up on the island. She hadn’t even asked the price before signing up for the Getaway Package. Sure, Nook Inc wasn’t exactly the exalted overthrow of Joja that Pelican Town had pulled off, but… it was the best chance she’d seen, really the  _ only _ chance, and she took it. 

At first, it was so invigorating, so like her brother’s stories of his first days on the farm. Getting everything back up and running, trying to figure out what to eat. She didn’t even think about the addiction she’d run from. 

One of her new neighbors had caught her trying to relieve some tension by…  _ shaking _ … a tree to try and get some branches to fall out of it,  _ certainly  _ that was all she was doing… but hadn’t batted an eye. That was the closest to a relapse she’d had, despite the company. She’d known there would be company, but she thought they’d just be human. Not… not this incredible reversal of the typical mainland demographics. 

When she’d arrived, at least there’d been nothing on the island of any permanence other than the airport, and it had been like running wild in a new Eden. She was a good neighbor, because it was a way to expend energy and stay out of trouble. She was an explorer. She fished, and caught and studied new insects, and she cut wood for tools and gifts. She mined rock and ore and clay, she picked up shells, and occasionally she even ran from tarantulas. 

It had been like a return to innocence, right down to rutting up against the knots on the trees, getting herself off unselfconsciously, not even thinking about fur or feathers or sharp claws or long licks. It was a primitive forest and company had been next to nonexistent, and when her path crossed with others, it was on her own terms. 

The thing was, she’d been  _ too _ helpful. She herself laid the way for more fascinating neighbors to move in. 

She wasn’t sure how she’d make it, here, without giving in if some opportunity presented itself. Not if one of the actual Anthropomorphics showed interest. 

What would her therapist say? 

Couldn’t be much worse than how she was excoriating herself for the casual objectification she couldn’t help engaging in. The long looks when backs were turned. The thoughts alone in the forest with her dear, resolute trees. 

For better or worse, said therapist and all the pamphlets about overcoming kink addiction were back on the mainland, and she was stranded on the island of fucking temptation. 

She should’ve known that, with even a relatively harmless corporation at the helm, the pristine state of nature crap couldn’t go unsullied by  _ progress _ for long. And with it… with it… 

_ He _ came. 

\-- 

“Hey! There you are! Since you’re always helping me out, I got you a present!” 

Jeremiah plunked down beside her on the bench in the freshwater exhibit in a cloud of amphibian naivete, holding out a recipe card for some new DIY thing or other. Blinking out of her reverie, she looked at it, then past it at the lazy blue frog. 

He always looked a little like he was smirking but she was really sure he actually was now, especially as she read the recipe. 

“As soon as I saw it, I thought of you.” He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. “You’ve been so, I donno,  _ harsh _ lately.” 

She shook her head. “Jeremiah, where did you come up with schematics for a sea-snail-and-bamboo  _ bong?!  _ Is smoking even legal on the island?!” She blinked, realizing she honestly had no idea what laws, if any, governed life here. “Wait, what would we even smoke?” 

The little frog bubbled with impish laughter, patting her knee companionably. “I’m usually really forgetful, but I heard a freaky rumor about the weeds on this island, nee deep! And I gathered 99 of them this morning. Wanna see if it works?” 

And so they had. 

And as she exalted, lying in his wet bed, her bloodshot-eyed neighbor took another puff and then spread her open, pushing unceremoniously into her. 

All she could think to say as her back started to rasp over the pondweed sheets was, “Is this  _ really  _ happening?” 

He was so stoned he didn’t seem to hear her, though. Instead, as he got going, he only repeated, “Nee deep!  _ Nee DEEP!”  _ with every careless, sloppy thrust until he was practically hopping off the footboard to bounce his hips off hers, sending her over the edge again and again with his frenetic, leaping plunges. He didn’t even pause in his smoking or slurping up pears, and she was too high to care. She’d needed this,  _ god _ , why had she ever run? Why hadn’t she ever found out what it was like with a  _ real _ half-animal? His skin was like nothing she’d ever touched before. 

As he croaked one last, victorious  _ “NEE DEEEEEEEEP!” _ and collapsed on top of her, she smiled. He started to snore even as made his last few thrusts, and she felt the pulsing of his release gush down her legs with relish before she fumbled to bring the bong up for one last hit, then fell asleep. 

\-- 

She’d been so ashamed the next morning. And relieved, though not surprised, when she woke up before him and didn’t wake him as she extricated her sticky limbs from under his pale blue belly. 

She wondered, as she slipped out, if he’d even remember. She hoped not. It would make  _ never letting it happen again _ easier. 

She liked Jeremiah fine, but only friendship and, well, his  _ body  _ really interested her, and that wasn’t fair to him. Last night maybe they’d used each other - but from the look on his face when he gave her those glasses to try on the other day, she knew it wouldn’t stay that way on his end if she let him get any ideas. 

She shivered in the cool morning air, ignoring the various present-laden balloons and buzzing dragonflies as she headed for her own home, hoping to avoid others and get to work on that outdoor bath recipe she’d just gotten. 

\-- 

The island just kept growing up. There were tourists, camping at the spot she’d picked by the waterfall, and lots upon lots for sale and selling like coconuts. Island Services had moved out of its tent, Mabel had opened a store, and the Museum… the  _ museum…  _

Her entire sordid hangup had started with  _ him _ , so long ago, when she’d first seen laid eyes on him lecturing in another, smaller museum associated with her university. She knew she could never have him, and she’d found so many ways to run or distract herself over all the intervening years. Her education didn’t naturally lead to telemarketing, and her ambivalence to anime didn’t logically end in the yiffy life, either. 

But of course, of  _ course _ now she was here, and  _ he _ was here. She’d known Nook had been a major donor to his past enterprises, but surely she didn’t subconsciously set herself up for this… right? 

Every day her little Nook Miles app reminded her to bring him fossils, to watch again how even the oldest, most shrivelled bones magically swelled into absurd grandeur under his scrutiny. 

She hadn’t actually drooled yet, but it was a near thing and time was wearing her down. 

No.  _ No _ . She’d have to be more isolated. She’d … she’d move her house to the cliffs, where her neighbors couldn’t go yet. She’d keep to herself, miles be damned. She’d hop a plane to some deserted rock in a more pristine state at every opportunity. She could  _ not  _ fall under the miasma of sex and obsession again, getting high and winding up “nee deep” with the bullfrog for days that blurred into weeks just because she could. 

It could  _ never  _ be more than a game of pretend, not for a human like her, certainly not with the object of her affection. The one person she’d pined over all these years, the one whose poster had been on the ceiling over her bed in college, delightedly promoting his newest museum. 

Heh. While all her human boyfriends and girlfriends had been one form or another of “nee deep,” she’d been looking up at  _ him  _ as her head bumped and rumpled the pillow. 

Nothing less had  _ ever  _ been enough, but  _ he  _ … he was  _ pristine _ . Even now, he never looked up from whatever book he was reading unless she interrupted with a donation. Was never seen beyond the walls of the stone edifice that housed his grand collection. 

_ Never _ gave her a second look, even though she had a doctorate in paleontology and could sometimes be more specific than even  _ he  _ about a fossil’s origins. Hadn’t even done more than blink in perplexity when she’d volunteered to take care of the bug collection. Hadn’t even  _ considered  _ her offer to free him of the most detested part of his labor. 

There were fewer and fewer woods to hide in, but hide she would. 

And maybe be less helpful to Tom Nook, too. 

If she couldn’t have him, she’d have to stay away. This half-life was just masochism. 

\-- 

So she stayed away. 

A season came and went with no new donations. She still ventured in to sell to Timmy and Tommy (who were mercifully untempting, nestled there in Nook’s Cranny). She’d tried to avoid the walk into town altogether for a while, but had been forced to concede it was necessary after an ill-fated evening on which she brought out the bong to share with Flick. She’d been especially lonely. She’d been bouncing astride him through their final throes when he made some crack about it being free the first time. 

She’d told him to bug off, managed to scrape up a DIY schematic for a vibrator, and redoubled her effort to stay alone. 

\-- 

One weird side effect of her efforts had been that her home was becoming absolutely  _ festooned  _ with fossils. 

She woke every morning with a t-rex leering over her bed. 

There was a tricera skull in the parlor and various littler tracks and creatures preserved in stone in the kitchen. Even some coprolite in the bathroom - she laughed every time she passed by it. 

She felt  _ she  _ was among the fossils now, cold and unchanging and lost to the world. 

She cut wood and fruit and stone, fished, sustained herself. Tossed seasonal frivolities in the sell bin without bringing them by her bench. Became the hermit on the mount. Studiously avoided donating to the bridge fund so that no one would ever get so far as to build a ramp up to her solitary cliff. 

\-- 

But then one day, there was a  _ change _ . 

She still listened to the morning announcements, and there’d been talk of a mainland virus recently. This morning, though… 

“Well… heh, heh, as much as I’d prefer, well, confrontation, I’m afraid I have some bad news to share with you all,” came Isabelle’s soprano quaver over the PA system below. “Um, a case of the Crow-nono Virus has been confirmed in the last camper to visit the island, and, well…” The little dog was interrupted by the choked mixture of a gasp and a sob - such a strange sound, coming from the ever-chipper Shitzu. “We’ve all been  _ exposed!” _ The little dog burst into sniffling wails, and Tom Nook’s voice took over. 

“As of immediately, to help combat the virus, we must all gather in our island’s largest building - the Museum. Anyone who does not comply will be found and escorted by Nook Inc. security flown in from the mainland. Please pack to stay for some time - bring your sleeping bag or camp bed, heck, even your  _ bed  _ bed if you like. There’s space for everyone and we can get through this together. In fact, together is, yes yes, the  _ only  _ way.” 

With trembling hands she started to scoop up her belongings, already feeling the walls begin to close in. 

\-- 

The erstwhile Resident Representative, who was increasingly self-conscious of not having changed her clothes this month, tried to hover near the back of the large atrium as Nook and Blathers whispered to each other behind the podium they’d set up at the top of the stairs. 

Nook introduced Blathers as the resident scientific prodigy and then sat on one of the benches behind him. 

“Jolly good. Em. Well.” Blathered paused and looked manically around at his now-crowded sanctuary, beginning to pant a bit in anxiety at this invasion before he looked down at a long printout in front of him. “It seems that this Crow-nono virus…” 

With a gulp, he broke off, madly flipping pages and muttering to himself “ah, yes… I see… in that case...ahem…” 

He looked up, something hopeless and trapped about his large, luminous eyes. “I am obliged to tell you that only by,  _ ahem _ , staying in very  _ close _ quarters can we…can we combat this pestilence.” He shivered. “Viruses, even worse than bugs, but… but I  _ must… _ ” 

He broke off and muttered something ending in “ _ dreadful _ ,” then seemed to shake it off again. “Ahem. Anyhoot. The virus is most likely to resolve quickly and not to result in death when various infected people of…  _ hoot…  _ of  _ as varied a genetic pool as possible _ are in as close contact with each other as possible during its incubation period.” 

From hiding in the back, she blinked. Everyone knew about the genetic commonalities shared by all the Anthropomorphics. Meanwhile, they varied so greatly from straight humans that it was often difficult for a mixed couple to reproduce.  _ That  _ meant… 

She tried to fix her jaw in place and still a slight tremble. 

_ He _ , meanwhile, had stopped to straighten his bowtie nervously while everyone parsed his meaning, but now resumed. “Ahem. As none of us are yet symptomatic, there may be time to fend off the worst of it. Otherwise..” he blinked widely, shuddering. “Em, otherwise infection may still be assuaged but under utterly  _ odious _ and involuntary circumstances that might remove the capacity for consent.” 

Slowly, various sets of eyes, and a variety of different pupil shapes, turned to  _ her _ . 

\-- 

Immediately after awkwardly greeting the various people she’d been avoiding for months as she edged for the Aquarium wing, she’d run for it, looking for the best facsimile of privacy she could manage in the now-shared living space of the museum. 

She had barely gotten out of the room before her phone rang. Tom Nook, of course - the island required another favor. Another  _ sacrifice _ . 

She picked up and didn’t listen past his “Hello-”. 

“Fine, Tom,” she spat. “Everyone come take a ride on the Resident Representative. I’ll lie back and think of the island, just try not to have everyone show up at once, and don’t be surprised if y’all find me stoned off my ass, because this is beyond the fucking pale.” 

Hanging up while he started to stutter thanks had felt  _ good _ . She relished it; it might be the last thing that felt pure and right in the world for some time. 

\-- 

She ended up cramming her double bed into the catwalk tunneled by aquarium tank on all sides, and, flouting all sense of order, assembled the fossilized T-Rex skeleton inside the tank so that it could still leer down at her, even as a sea horse clung to one of its banana-sized fangs. 

Let the gentlemen of the island concentrate with  _ that _ audience. 

Then, she threw herself down on the bed in a snit, resolving to craft some dividers to shelter her bed from view later, not wanting to put on any more of a show than absolutely necessary, and cried herself to sleep. 

\-- 

The next morning, before anyone could get up to tell her not to, she stomped out of museum lockdown to go and retrieve the bong and a full sack of the island’s weed. Lighting up just as she started to hear the sounds of others moving, she inhaled deeply and waited. 

\-- 

Cherry, who’d always been kind and a little bit of a flirt, came by first. 

Cherry’d been 100% game to smoke, thankfully, and laughed, unsurprised, to learn about the …  _ medicinal properties _ of the island’s nuisance plants. 

When Cherry waddled away two hours later, grinning beatifically with her own copy of the bong schematics in hand, she’d shaken the cramp out of her arm and suggested that her canine companion might visit to Jeremiah to spread the good cheer and bodily fluids before she sobered up much. 

Cherry’d just laughed. “Nee deep, wot wot?” 

_ Indeed _ , she’d thought, wandering listlessly to the loo to wash her hands and face. Better Cherry than a sequel encounter with the little blue frog next door. 

\-- 

Later - she didn’t know how much later, only that she’d indulged a  _ great deal _ in the interim - she blinked, bleary eyed, to see Tom, Timmy, and Tommy climbing down from her bed. She felt sore  _ everywhere  _ and was still on her hands and knees, lathered in what she hoped was just sweat. She shuddered as Tom grinned while he trundled off down the stairs, thanking her with a bow of his head and a little “yes yes.” 

Glad she hadn’t been in any sort of chemical state to remember anything that had happened, she crawled up the stairs to jump into the fish tank, letting the water lap her clean and wishing she had found and donated some of those little exfoliating fish to remove her top layer of skin. 

\-- 

She was ravenous and quite angry to find herself in her right mind when she woke up next. Someone had wandered off with her sack of weed. 

When she ventured out to the lobby, a haze of smoke so thick it obscured everything more than six feet away clawed at her eyes. Blinking, she groped toward the place she remembered stashing her crate of pears the day before. 

Or however many days before. 

Looming out of the haze, at one point she saw Tom Nook at work with Isabelle, the little dog wagging her tail excitedly on her knees as she yipped and slurped around the Tanuki’s spirited oral invasion. 

She shrank in another direction, desperate to unsee what she’d seen, only to be confronted by the sight of Rowan disporting himself with Fauna, who was blushing furiously and saying “Oh my! Oh dearie me!” every time her weight bumped harder onto her hooves and knees where they were braced beneath her on the floor. The Tiger, meanwhile, was using her cotton tail to pull her back onto him with each thrust and purring in ecstasy as he soldiered on, clearly in an altered but blissful state. 

Mercifully, as her eyes burned with the afterimage, her groping fingers found her food and she grabbed it, hauling herself back to her little outpost as quickly as possible. As she went, she was grateful for a moment that the Anthropomorphics all had genitalia similar to humans - she didn’t like to think of Fauna, who was sweet and generous, having to contend with feline  _ barbs _ . 

\-- 

She returned to her own lair, however, to see a thoughtful Blathers surveying his adulterated tank - specifically, the t-rex in it. 

He turned the full force of his enormous, piercing eyes to her with a witheringly cold curiosity when she skidded to a halt just shy of colliding with him. 

“Hmmph.” He sniffed, surveying her up and down. 

And then he flew away, leaving her there, blinking and shamed. 

\-- 

Flip, Hamlet, Leonardo. Sly, Mabel, Saharah, Gulliver. Harvey - sorry,  _ Harv _ -, Bianca, and,  _ dear god,  _ Octavian. In a haze - she’d  _ demanded _ the return of her weed - all of them came… and eventually all of them went. 

\-- 

It wasn’t until several days later that she saw Blathers again. He was perched atop the huge tank, looking down through the waters, when she woke. 

At first, she thought it was some sort of dream-state nod back at the poster that had once adorned her ceiling, but as she blinked and his face resolved through the ripples of the water, she gave a little shriek of surprise and checked that the covers were, well,  _ covering _ . 

When she had gathered up the fortitude necessary to peek out, he was perched on her footboard, head canted in inquiry. 

She noticed that he seemed… unwell. The creeping shock of that revelation had her lowering the quilt below her chin and looking at him in horror before he spoke. 

“Did I not tell you,” he croaked, “that I would welcome your fossil donations any  _ old  _ time?” 

Then, he started, brokenly, to  _ laugh.  _

His voice was mangled - the virus was becoming symptomatic. Further, she could see sweat beading on his brow, and he was blinking rapidly and shifting from foot to foot in agitation - or perhaps difficulty balancing. 

But he managed to keep looking at her expectantly until she remembered that he’d asked a question. 

“Em… did no one else donate a T-Rex?” she asked. 

(She knew. It had to be asked, but  _ of course _ they hadn’t. Everyone else here wandered around with shovels and whatnot, but when the rubber hit the road, she knew  _ she  _ was the one everyone looked to when shit had to get done.) 

Blathers, meanwhile, had managed to shakily draw himself up to full height and fluff out his feathers imperiously. “Hoot.  _ No.”  _

She shifted uncomfortably under the blanket, at an awkward loss for words. “I’m… sorry. I shouldn’t have brought him here. I’ve just … grown accustomed to his face - when I wake up in the morning, you know? He’s always just… there.” 

The quizzical cant of the curator’s head increased. 

She sighed. “The fossil was in very good condition - I only had to do some minor reconstruction of the left tibia, but I found most of the fragments and had to do very little substitution of plaster or bonding material. I found evidence of egg shells in the riverbed nearby, as well.” 

The blinking intensified, as did the ruffling of the fluff. “And you are an expert on such matters, hoot?” 

She got a little angry at that. “Yes, actually. I am. I have a Ph.D. in Paleontology and wrote my dissertation on theropods. Which I  _ told you _ the day we properly met when you moved here, if you don’t recall.” 

He blinked in confusion, taking a swipe at some sweat dripping toward his eyes with a pinfeather as his fluff smoothed marginally. “I say, you  _ did?”  _

She shook her head, finding she preferred anger to abject terror. “You absolutely  _ ignored  _ me. So when I decided to retreat from society, as you’d never taken me up on my offers to help, I felt no further obligation to deliver all my finds into  _ your  _ talons.” 

He blinked, well, owlishly. “Hoot. Yes. I recall you did offer to help with… with… the  _ dreadful _ wing, didn’t you.” 

It was more of a musing than a question. As he got lost in thought, she started to genuinely worry about his condition. The luster of his feathers was completely gone, suggesting he hadn’t had the energy to preen. His eyes looked unfocused and he was shaking slightly. 

“Em, Director Blathers?” she broke in eventually, startling him from his revery. “Are you alright? You’ve… em… been mixing with the others, right? To... avoid the worst of the virus?” 

He sniffed, feathers suddenly going cold-bloodedly smoothed as his face shuttered. “Certainly not. I would not… would not simply  _ share my person _ with the matting crowd, hoot!” 

She blinked slowly at him, an incredulous panic rising in her. “You  _ what?! _ You’ll  _ die!”  _

The owl smoothed his wings and shrugged. “I will die  _ myself _ , if I can, though - hoot  _ hoot _ .” 

She could not actually  _ believe _ this absolute nonsense. 

And so, before she could think her way out of it, she lunged at him, pulling her into the tangled bed with a snarl. 

\-- 

She cut her cheek on the hook of his sharp beak as she shoved her tongue into his mouth, but thrusting it against his as she pulled him under her, she found she didn’t much care. In fact, she shuddered, laying herself out atop him with lascivious precision and gyrating against him in time with her mouth’s motions. 

He seemed stunned, but he wasn’t pushing her away. Instead, his wings were fluttering awkwardly around her, as if he couldn’t figure out if he should let them settle around her or push her off. 

After a long, hard snog, she finally pulled up, panting. “Sorry, Blathers.” She started to get up off him. “It would be illogical to let you die without attempting to prevent it.” 

She sat up and turned away, letting her feet dangle over the side of the bed and mumbling to herself as he smoothed his plumage and sputtered. “ _ Or _ to risk dying of this thing myself without making any move to save the one I’ve wanted for so long, either.” 

The owl turned to her rapidly, pupils narrowing as he startled. “Hoot.. WHO?!” 

She cringed toward the footboard, beside herself with embarrassment. “Em, I…” She desperately tried to look somewhere, anywhere else than into the face of the predator bearing down on her. Finally, she just slumped and whined. “Everyone else here gets to talk to themselves _ sotto voce  _ without it being a thing  _ all the time! _ Why not me?” 

He sniffed imperiously. “My dear, owls have  _ excellent _ hearing. It helps us…” he looked at her appraisingly, taking in her rumpled state, her inched up skirt and general dishabille, “It helps us to take our  _ prey…”  _

And the next thing she knew, he was flapping above her, pushing her down on her stomach as his talons made quick work of the back of her skirt and… and… 

\-- 

When she finally woke, two days later, Blathers was preening her hair, and had tucked her under one wing as they lay side by side on her bed. 

She was glad to see all his sweating and tremors were gone, and that the owl had regained his usual satiny luster. For her own part, if anything, she felt  _ cleaner  _ than before - at the same time that she felt as absolutely  _ filthy _ , sore, and as exhausted as she had ever felt in her life. 

She tried to account for everything that had transpired as she cleared the sleep from her eyes and her mind, alternately paling and blushing as she did. Blathers watched this looking inscrutable -- though somewhat smug. 

“Did we…” she asked, her mouth a little moue of disbelief. 

“Oh, yes.” He chuckled, sorting out a little snarl with his beak. “Undoubtedly, and at least thrice.” 

She let herself go limp, attempting to comprehend and rather spectacularly failing. “And… em… is…” 

He snuggled against her contentedly, seeming entirely unbothered by her confusion. “Everyone else has gotten well and left. The museum is closed, mmm, until further notice.” 

She blinked up at him, feeling herself ill-equipped to meet those luminous, half-lidded eyes. “It’s closed, but I’m still here?” 

He nodded. “As long as we like.” 

Slowly registering how he’d said that, she finally replied, “... oh.” 

He grinned, laugh lines disturbing the feathers at the corners of his eyes. “I rather afraid I’m meant to be using this time to see to it you recuperate and convince you to put the Tyrannosaur on exhibit permanently.” 

She squirmed a little closer to his ruffled chest, though her face was all coy. “Well! I may need some healing attention. And… some  _ compelling arguments _ , too.” 

The gentleman raptor grinned. “ _ Jolly _ good.” 

And then he was on her again in a whirl of feathers, and everything was perfect. 


End file.
